Gabi shook her head again and muttered something about newbie mistakes. ‘Red flag, Anna. Nev and Max would be ashamed of you!’ She reached over to grab her phone off the bedside table. ‘What is his last name?’

‘Smith.’

‘Smith?’ she said, raising an eyebrow at Anna.

Anna looked over Gabi’s shoulder as she searched Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. When she’d finished, she waved her phone at Anna. ‘This is suspicious. I don’t like it, Anna. I don’t like it. Everybody has some kind of online stuff these days, so it’s weird that he does not. What is Brody Smith not telling you – if his name really is Brody Smith?’

Nothing, Anna wanted to say, and she was about to when she remembered the feeling that had been creeping up on her recently. Brody was holding something back. She knew that as clearly and certainly as she knew that he was a good, decent man, and not a scammer or a pervert.

‘Just promise me – if you ever, ever think about meeting him, you find out more,’ Gabi said earnestly.

Anna swallowed. ‘Of course.’

Mind you, she thought as she eased herself off the bed and said goodnight to Gabi, it really was a moot point. She wasn’t going to have to worry about the ethics of it, because, as much as she wanted to meet Brody, he obviously didn’t want to meet her.

Chapter Forty-One

A COUPLE OF days later, Brody stood at the back door to Moji’s shop, his arms full. He felt a quiver, a flash of something across his consciousness, and his stomach dropped. He closed his eyes and felt the solid reality of the cardboard box he was holding, the weight of its contents. He breathed in and out, then opened his eyelids.

Okay. He was going to do this. This was a concrete opportunity to put into practice the things he’d only been working on in private up until this point. He’d laid his foundation: exercise, nutrition, better sleep. He’d rehearsed the techniques Ibrahim had introduced him to. They’d both agreed the next step was to use them in a real-life situation, and waiting for the next pair of hikers to appear on his doorstep was not really an option.

They’d kept the toolbox of techniques simple. First was breathing. Second, counting. He’d practised this lots recently, counting birds, trees, clouds. He’d even mentally prepared for being in the town, adding cars of a particular colour or a certain breed of dogs to his list, anything to distract himself from the mounting physical sensations. Because the more attention he paid to them, the more he was likely to tip himself over the edge.

The third technique was one he found harder to do, but which Ibrahim had suggested keeping in reserve, a last resort, if you like. It involved stepping outside of himself, outside of his symptoms, and analysing the panic as if it was an external thing, not something happening to him right then and there.